


Such Tender Poison

by SweetSorcery



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Dark, Depression, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Male Slash, Mental Breakdown, Slash, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:01:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetSorcery/pseuds/SweetSorcery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cedric can make Harry's pain go away. And sometimes, even Ron's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Tender Poison

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All canon referred to within belongs to J.K. Rowling, Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, Warner Bros. Inc., and possibly others. Non-canon bits were created for non-profit, non-infringement entertainment.
> 
> Archiving: Absolutely nowhere please, not even in translated form.
> 
> Author's Notes: This was written in January 2006, and it's probably the bleakest thing I've ever written. Furthermore, it is not quite what it seems. Consider yourself warned.

A merciless autumn wind rattled the dirty windows on their hinges, forcing its way through cracks and tiny spaces to ruffle frayed drapes. Moonlight winked in and out of existence with their movement, pooling on a plain round rug in the centre of the wooden floor and illuminating the figure standing there.

Harry was pressed back against the headboard of their bed, breathing hard. His eyes were wide and glistening as he looked at the only one he'd ever loved. The one whose presence right here, and in Harry's own heart, defied death itself. Even after all these years - two since he'd left Hogwarts, five since the Triwizard Tournament - the potential loss of that love still held his heart in a cold grasp. But there was no need for it. He was right here. He would always be right here. Everything was fine.

"Cedric," Harry whispered, reaching out.

Soft grey eyes looked down at him, full lips curving into a sweet smile. "Harry." Cedric came closer and sat down beside him. He stroked over Harry's hair. "You've had another one of those nightmares, haven't you?" he asked.

Harry nodded, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

"It's been years, Harry. Let go." Cedric's voice was choked. "And I'm here. I'll always be here. I'll always be safe with you loving me." How he wished those nightmares would stop. That the Triwizard Tournament would stop haunting Harry. It wasn't fair. It kept them from being happy and able to relax, from just having a normal life together.

"I love you so much." Harry voice was tear-choked. He stretched out his arms, and Cedric moved into them immediately, pressing his face into the crook of Harry's neck.

Harry's shuddering sigh tore at Cedric's soft heart, wringing a few tears from him which didn't quite soak into Harry's clammy skin. "I love you too, Harry. I'll never stop." Cedric kissed the damp cheek, rubbed his nose against it, savouring even the taste of Harry's distress. "I want you to be happy," he said a little desperately.

Harry shivered. "Make love to me, Cedric," he whispered. "Make me forget."

Cedric's heart was pounding. When he laid his hands on Harry's cheeks, he was shaking with nerves and excitement, but he brushed his fingertips along Harry's neck and then the collar and lapels of Harry's pyjama top, flicking open button after button with ease.

Harry's chest was heaving, his eyes fixed on Cedric's, his senses reeling from the touch of those sensitive fingers on his bare flesh, gradually laying him open before Cedric's adoring eyes.

Drinking in the sight of Harry's pale skin, Cedric leaned in, his full lips moving ever so softly across his collarbones, resting over his heart, and with a brush of his fingertips, raising Harry's nipples to hard peaks before licking at them with quick flickers of his tongue.

Harry was moaning, squirming under the touch of Cedric's hands and lips, his fingers running through thick, brown hair. "Kiss me," he begged huskily.

Cedric's damp lips covered Harry's, and he gathered him up into his arms, cool flesh against the warmth of his wool jumper. They trembled together, seeking some kind of calm in their kiss, but there was nothing like that for them. Their touches kept them on a knife-edge of pleasure, always.

Harry moved against Cedric, lay back and pulled him down on top of him. He was still smaller, even at the age of 19, and his body was weaker and slighter than it used to be, but desperation gave him strength, and Cedric moved into place, stretching out over him.

"I've missed you so!" Harry sighed, his hands clutching at Cedric's back under his jumper, his nails cutting half-moon shapes into the smooth skin as he bucked up against Cedric.

Panting, Cedric rotated his hips against him, and they struggled between their bodies, hands fumbling desperately to strip down pyjama bottoms and pants. They flung them off the bed, and Harry pulled the jumper up over Cedric's head, and then his pyjama top was pushed back off his shoulders, and they were finally skin on skin, hot and flushed, so familiar and yet always new.

Harry's mouth was open and his breathing irregular as his eyes roamed up and down Cedric's body, his fingers following in their wake. "So beautiful," he murmured, and his voice cracked. "Mine. Always mine."

"Always yours," Cedric confirmed. "There's no one else for me, Harry. Never was." And more softly, "Never will be." He kissed Harry deeply, his hands cupping his face, sliding over his shoulders, running down his arms and then raising them and pinning them to the pillow above Harry's head. Wrists so thin now, he could hold them down with one hand, while the other traced pale flesh and too noticeable ribs and a sharp hipbone. His eyes anchored Harry, soothed his need, while his hand stroked down between Harry's thighs and cupped him gently.

Harry surged up into Cedric's grasp, his neck arched and his eyes squeezed shut. But he opened them again, couldn't afford not to look. To keep his eyes firmly on Cedric. He let his legs fell open in surrender, and the long fingers folded around him tenderly.

Cedric began to stroke, tracing every vein, lingering in the most sensitive spots, caressing the flushed, spongy tip and sliding his fingers through the steady trail leaking from it, spreading it around Harry's arousal, and down between his legs, before he shifted lower and took him deep into his mouth, slender fingers slick enough to slide inside Harry effortlessly.

Harry's groan was almost a sob, his body twitching helplessly, his eyes watching, mesmerized by Cedric's plump lips moving up and down his length, long lashes brushing high cheekbones, dark grey eyes half-lidded. "I need you so much," he gasped out. "Cedric... oh, Cedric."

Cedric pushed his fingers deeper, carefully rotating them in increasing circles, opening Harry up more and more. It was always so easy. Harry relaxed completely under his touch, his trust that Cedric would never hurt him unshakable. He withdrew his fingers, his chest tightening at Harry's grunt of displeasure, and lifted Harry's lower body off the bed just far enough to reach with his tongue where his fingers had been.

Harry whimpered, shaking so hard that Cedric could barely keep him steady. "Oh... oh... oh..." Over and over, meaningless syllables spilling from Harry's pink lips while Cedric kissed and lapped and thrust his tongue into him until Harry's body went rigid, and Cedric moved up, taking him into his mouth again, just in time. And Harry was coming, coming so hard and for so long, and Cedric revelled in every second of it, swallowing and sucking even harder, until Harry flopped back to the mattress, boneless, sobbing out his love for him.

Cedric moved up into his arms, held him, kissed him, gave him back some of his own essence while keeping most of it for himself. "I'm going to take you now, Harry," he murmured against parted lips. "I'm going to fill you up until you're whole again."

Harry whimpered, his sweaty fingers clutching at Cedric's back, his hands moving down to dig into the smooth flesh of Cedric buttocks as he drew up his knees, legs wide open. "Please!"

Cedric kissed him once more, smiled at him, and reached for the salve on the bedside table.

When Cedric slid inside Harry, they both sighed. Far beyond physical pleasure, this was the moment they lived for. The single point of light in their continuing darkness. This thin thread of a connection - so brief, so rare - was more solid than anything else they knew. They held completely still, arms tight around one another. Harry's legs were wrapped around Cedric's back, his eyes wide open and trusting.

Cedric moved, so slowly, slowly enough to feel everything - Harry's surrender, tight flesh opening for him, caressing him and drawing him in. Inside Harry. His Harry. Cedric's Harry. "I love you so much, Harry," he whispered brokenly, straining to keep his movements slow and controlled.

"Cedric!" Harry was biting his lip, his heels caressing Cedric's flanks, his hands holding onto Cedric's shoulders. "More. Please, give me more, Cedric. Give me everything." His voice was husky, his eyes pleading, damp, desperate. He was growing hard against Cedric once more.

And Cedric snapped his hips forward, entering Harry all the way, holding there. Suspended in time.

They were panting damply against each other's mouths, confessions dripping from one into the other, followed by pleas.

Harry squeezed around him, and Cedric's eyes lost focus. He drew back with great difficulty, almost all the way out, but the pain of distance was too great, and Harry's eyes were growing damp, and he thrust back in as far as he could, reassuring them both that it wasn't over yet.

And Harry sighed with relief. There was even a smile playing around his lips, and Cedric's heart hurt at the rare sight of it, and he kissed it, memorising its taste, licking it and swallowing it like medicine. "My Harry," he murmured into damp black hair, thrusting slowly and shallowly. His lips nipped at an earlobe, kissed the space beneath, then moved down the pale throat, pulse throbbing near his cheek.

Harry's neck arched, his legs tightened around Cedric's back, and he was murmuring endearments and pleas and love, love, love and Cedric, Cedric, Cedric. Always, Cedric.

Cedric's thrusts became less coordinated and more frantic and Harry's eyes manic with need, their bodies slamming together with no concept of restraint or pain or reality, rushing towards climax. For a few blissful moments, they were unaware of the passing of time.

Harry's mouth parted on a silent scream, was covered by Cedric's, and they shared their happiness and grief and desperation when they fell over the crest together.

They remained in that connection for breathless minutes, clinging to each other like the last two survivors of a shipwreck. And there was a storm coming. And soon.

Harry started sobbing softly, one eye fixed on the mercilessly glowing dial across the room, cold moonlight through ragged curtains drawing it closer and closer to the hour. He kissed Cedric frantically - his mouth, his cheeks, his eyelids, his nose. "Stay with me, _please!_ "

Cedric returned his kisses as long as he could, until the telltale shudder wracked his body.

A cry of distress spilled from Harry's mouth in sympathy and terror. "No!" he begged. "I love you! Cedric!"

"I love you too, Harry. I'm so sorry," Cedric whimpered, suppressing the groans of pain while he changed in Harry's embrace, his hair lengthening and changing colour, his eyes turning a melancholic blue, his skin growing paler, freckles blossoming, limbs broadening.

Harry grew cold in his arms, his eyes wide and so terribly sad that Ron couldn't bear to look at them, couldn't bear the grief and disappointment. The grip on him loosened as Harry fully realised Cedric was lost to him yet again.

Ron lowered his eyes and choked out, "I'm so sorry, Harry." He turned away, out of the dying embrace, huddling on the far side of the bed under their threadbare blanket. He was shivering - so cold, always so cold after this. The look in Harry's eyes each time he lost Cedric again was more than he could bear.

Ron wished he could hate Cedric for dying and turning them into this parody of a couple, but how could he? Whenever he was being Cedric, Harry loved him. Desperately. For an hour at a time.

Ron wanted to hold Harry. Wanted to tell him that he, _Ron_ , loved him more than anything in the world. When he told Harry how much he loved him, Ron willed Harry to hear the sincerity in his voice. No, in Cedric's voice. But they were _his_ words. He wasn't acting. He wanted Harry to know, and to care, that it was not Cedric's ghost who swore his love to him but his oldest friend. His only friend, now that Harry had driven away everyone else with his all-encompassing grief, with those first tendrils of madness grasping at his heels.

Ron wouldn't be driven away. Not by that. Not by anything. He would still hold Harry's hands and wrap his arms around him in St. Mungo's. He would continue to keep Harry anchored in this world for as long as he could.

He knew it made him as wretched as Harry, because they were both clinging to ghosts - Harry to a boy he had loved and lost years ago, Ron to a boy he had loved since he was eleven and lost the day that boy's heart had been broken. But he could stand it for as long as Harry was with him, at least physically. As long as Harry made it all bearable by pretending to be with him. He told himself it didn't matter that from time to time, Harry asked him to pretend to be the man he truly loved and would never be able to hold again in this life.

But what would happen when they ran out of Cedric's hairs? The brush Harry had taken from Cedric's dorm just after his death, the Quidditch cloak and school robes he had stripped of every strand of hair he could find... there hadn't been that many, even if Ron only became Cedric every once in a while. They would run out. Sooner rather than later. What would happen then? When Ron would have to brave those mad, haunted green eyes to tell Harry they could brew no more polyjuice potion. God, what would happen then?

Ron's fingers gripped the edge of his pillow in a death grip, and tears rolled down his cheeks. He listened to Harry's quiet sobbing behind him, struggling not to turn around to hold him and comfort him. Harry wouldn't let him. Not right after... this. And what could he say to make things better?

When Cedric's hairs ran out, it would all fall apart. Harry first, and Ron would be right behind him. Just as he has always been.

THE END


End file.
